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The Rock's Jungle Cruise is Like an Indiana Jones Adventure

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has shared some details on his upcoming Disney movie, Jungle Cruise. Aside from all their animated movies and expanding the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, the Mouse House is knee-deep in remaking and re-imagining their classic animated and fairy tale stories in live-action. Still, their most successful live-action series continues to be Pirates of the Caribbean, which launched in 2003 and has grossed a grand total of $4.524 billion globally over the course of five installments.

Considering how successful the Pirates series has been for Disney, it's no wonder they want to adopt the Jungle Cruise - another Disney Parks adventure ride - into a live-action movie. The Mouse House first attempted to bring Jungle Cruise to life on the big screen in 2007, written by Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Miller, and starring Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, but the project was continuously delayed. Now, it seems the project is finally moving forward. Johnson is set to star in the main role - as the captain of a ship sailing on the Amazon River - with The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra at the helm.

Johnson recently compared the film to an Indiana Jones adventure in an interview with EW. He said: “[It’s] full-on adventure. Think Indiana Jones — those kinds of adventures. I’m very, very excited about it.” The actor elaborated on how Disney operates and expressed excitement for the upcoming film (which is one of many movies on his plate):

“This is where I really started to understand the power of Disney, just in terms of the deep dives that they do with their projects — with all of their projects,” Johnson told EW. “Because obviously they’re a studio and publicly traded, but specifically with projects like this where it’s based off a ride and based off a beloved attraction, like Pirates [of the Caribbean], so, so much goes into the work. And it’s so exciting.”

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The Jungle Book VFX supervisor J.D. Schwalm and The Gunman cinematographer Flavio Martinez Labiano recently joined Jungle Cruise's production crew and Schwalm likened the upcoming film to Pirates of the Caribbean, one of Disney's other major properties and the current bar for modern, sea-faring adventure films. What's more, Schwalm said they plan on incorporating as many practical effects as possible. However, his involvement with the movie may suggest Disney's plan to continue making their live-action films with photo-realistic animals as well, such as those seen in Jon Favreau's ground-breaking Jungle Book remake.

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Concrete details are scarce at this stage, but more information should come to light when Jungle Cruise enters production in spring 2018, which will film on sound stages in Atlanta and on-location in South America. The film doesn't yet have a release date.